Smile Again
by MyPartnerInCrime
Summary: /We hope you get well soon because Mr. Anderson looks very sad at the moment, and we miss his smile./ Kurt's in hospital and Blaine is barely keeping it together.


**Hello, meeee again!**

**This was originally just a tiny drabble...but it esculated...**

**Disclaimer: Glee no mine, so no fine.  
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><p>Blaine signed his name and handed the clipboard back to the nurse behind the front desk.<p>

"Thank you, sweetheart," smiled the nurse, taking the clipboard and taking his hand briefly to squeeze it comfortingly. Blaine half smiled at her with tired eyes, grateful for the simple, honest kindness of the older nurse every day.

Blaine walked the now familiar route down the white corridors, approaching the bland door and opening it with a heavy heart.

"Hey," he whispered as he sat down in the plastic chair beside the hospital bed, smiling weakly at the still form lying on it. He reached out to take the thin, pale hand, cold and unresponsive in his. "Sorry I'm late, I had to run detention again."

The only thing to break the silence was the steady beeping from a machine next to the bed. Blaine stared at the smooth, blank face of his fiancé, looking as though he was simply sleeping. As though his nose might twitch and his eyes might blearily blink open with a small smile and a sleepy 'Good morning'. Thinking like this was the only way Blaine could cope.

He brought the hand in his to his mouth to place a tender kiss to the back of it. "I miss you."

O

Ricky Harrison leant back on his chair and flicked a small paper ball at the back of the boy in front, who turned around and sent a smirk and a rude gesture back to Ricky.

"You still on for tomorrow, mate?" asked Ricky, not bothering to keep his voice down as their teacher had yet to arrive.

"Sure, Cassie's at her grandparents so I'm free all weekend," replied the boy, tipping on his chair as he replied.

"Awesome," said Ricky. "Oh, but Russell can't come."

"Why not?"

"The stupid prick fell outta tree and broke his wrist, he's in hospital for a couple of days."

"Dude," chuckled the other boy.

At that moment their teacher arrived, walking straight to his desk to set his bag down before turning to the board and half heartedly scribbling the lesson plan down. Ricky noticed the dark circles under his teacher's eyes and the untidy hair. He frowned, now that he came to think of it, something had been off with Mr. Anderson for a few days now. He was one of those annoying genuinely enthusiastic teachers that loved to teach boring stuff to a class of totally disinterested kids. But lately he had looked kinda weird.

"Hey," whispered Ricky and his friend turned around again. "What's up with sir, d'ya reckon?"

"What?" The boy took in the teacher's appearance. "He's probably just sick of us, mate. I would be," he snorted, turning back around. Ricky just shrugged and doodled in the margin of his paper.

When the bell rang at the end of class there was a instant chatter as everyone shoved their stuff into their bags and stood up, scraping their chairs back.

"Don't forget homework for tomorrow, guys," called Mr. Anderson over the noise as he himself stuffed his paperwork into his bag before darting from the classroom.

"He does know tomorrow's Saturday, right?" snorted Ricky to his friend as they walked out of school.

"He's finally gone crazy," agreed the boy with a laugh. They parted ways and Ricky began the relatively short walk home.

On his way, he passed the hospital and decided he might as well visit Russell. Maybe he would be the first to sign his cast, he thought as he checked to see his green Sharpie was still in his bag. He walked into the hospital, finding it quite easy to find the room his friend was in and found out he was indeed the first person to have a chance to sign Russell's cast.

After a quick catch up and a cheery goodbye, Ricky made his way out the hospital room, looking forward to the biscuits he know his mum had made this morning. But as he walked down the squeaky clean corridor, he saw something in one of the rooms. He stopped and backtracked, peering past the mostly open door.

There, sat in an uncomfortable chair with his head and arms on the side of a hospital bed, was his teacher. He watched with great curiosity as the young man lifted his head and then his arm to gently stroke the cheek of someone lying in the bed.

"Sir?" called Ricky hesitantly. Mr. Anderson turned his head and saw him with an expression of surprise.

"Ricky?" he straightened up, but kept his hand latched onto the hand of whoever lay in the bed. "What are you doing here?" His voice sounded tired and slightly strained.

"Uh, my friend broke his wrist," he explained with a shrug.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," said his teacher, bringing his spare hand up to rub absent-mindedly at his eye.

"Yeah." Ricky stood there awkwardly for a moment. "What about you, sir?"

"Me? Oh, I'm err, just visiting..." he glanced back to the person on the bed.

"Mind if I come in?" asked Ricky, already walking in and drawing up a chair on the other side of the bed.

"Uh...sure..."

Ricky took in the person on the bed. It was a man with pale skin and brown hair, pulled off his forehead as though someone had been running their fingers through it. But what really caught Ricky's attention was the yellowing bruise slapped over the left side of the man's face. If he looked closely he could see a healing split lip and scabbed over cuts on his cheek.

"Woah...is he alright?" Ricky asked, rather stupidly.

"...No. No, he isn't," whispered Mr. Anderson.

"Will he get better?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Anderson, his eyes squeezing shut.

"I hope he does," offered Ricky with a small smile.

"Thank you, Ricky," replied the teacher with an even smaller smile.

O

Ricky wasn't entirely sure why, but he came back the next day after school as well. It wasn't something he generally admitted, but he did like Mr. Anderson, he was a good teacher and had always looked so _happy_ that it made Ricky's chest feel funny to see him so utterly sad.

They both sat there for a while, making very small talk, but it wasn't necessarily very awkward.

O

The next day, as the bell rang and Mr. Anderson was the first one out of the classroom, as usual, Ricky barricaded the door with his body and yelled for everyone to listen.

"Guys!" he called, standing on a table. He roughly explained everything he knew about the situation and then proposed they do something nice for their poor, sad teacher, who everyone kind of secretly liked very much.

Together, the whole class stayed for at least half an hour after school had ended to compose a card made from scrap paper and sparkly gel pens from one of the girls' pencil cases. They all signed their name and then looked over their handiwork.

_Dear Mr. Anderson's friend who's in hospital,_

_We hope you get well soon because Mr. Anderson looks very sad at the moment, and we miss his smile. _

_Love from,_

And all the names of the class followed.

O

Ricky walked into the hospital, the card held securely in his hands as he signed his name in at the front desk and approached the door he knew his teacher would be behind. But today Mr. Anderson was not alone, a taller, similar looking man sat in Ricky's usual seat. Ricky edged closer, not sure if he should interrupt or not.

"What if he never wakes up, huh?" asked his teacher, distraught written all over his tired face.

"Blaine-"

"I can't do it, I...I don't know what to do," whimpered Mr. Anderson weakly. "We were going to...we're getting _married_, Leo," he choked. "We'd set a date and everything." And, for the first time, Ricky saw his teacher cry, heavy tears rolling down the man's face.

Ricky stared for a moment, not quite sure what to do. But then he quickly opened the card up and pulled a pen out, striking a line through _'friend'_ and scribbling _'fiancé'_ over the top. He then took a deep breath and knocked on the door, poking his head in.

"Mr. Anderson?" asked Ricky quietly. "I can go if you want..."

"N-no it's okay, Ricky," sniffed his pitiful looking teacher. "This is my brother, Leo," he mumbled, gesturing vaguely as he wiped at his eyes.

"Hi," said Ricky.

"Hey there," replied Leo with a kind smile.

"Uhm, sir," Ricky turned back to his teacher. "We made this, I mean, the whole class did. I hope that's okay." He handed the card to Mr. Anderson, who took it with a curious look in his sad eyes. He read it and smiled weakly, letting out a tiny chuckle around his sniffs.

"Thank you, Ricky," said his teacher earnestly, handing the card to Leo to read.

"I like the last minute adjustments," said Leo with slight amusement, gesturing to the hastily written _'fiancé'_ in green pen, and then to the green pen still in Ricky's hand.

"Yeah, I," Ricky coughed, "heard a tiny bit of your conversation. Sorry."

"That's alright, kid," smiled Leo, a similar sadness in his own eyes. He stood the card up on the bedside table and they all just looked at it for a moment. The flowers and big bubble writing written in sparkly gel pens on an old piece of scrap paper.

O

Ricky continued to visit, not every day, and sometimes other people in the class would go with him, just to show their support to their teacher, who was looking sadder and sadder as the days went on. The card stayed on the bedside table. A couple of others accumulated from, who Ricky assumed to be, friends and family of the man lying in the bed.

Sometimes Mr. Anderson wouldn't even come into class and they would have a substitute, causing members in the class to shoot worried glances at each other. Sometimes they would visit the hospital and find their teacher fast asleep with his head on the bed and his hand clutched tightly with the other man's. In this case they generally left him alone.

O

It was one particular day a few weeks later that Ricky went to visit, alone that day. Mr Anderson hadn't been in so, as always, he was quietly dreading the worst. He smiled kindly at the nurse as he signed in and made his way to the familiar room.

Instantly he knew something was different. The first sign was that Mr. Anderson was _smiling_. Not the tight, heartbroken smile he had occasionally worn recently, but a true, heart-warming beam that made Ricky's stomach jolt. He looked for the next obvious sign, he didn't notice immediately, but as he walked quietly into the room, forgetting to knock, he noticed the eyes of the man lying in the bed were open, and his mouth was moving as he quietly said something to Mr. Anderson.

His teacher laughed joyfully and brought a hand up to the other man's cheek, staring adoringly into the blue eyes that had been closed for so long.

"...Sir?" called out Ricky quietly, a small smile on his face.

"Ricky!" said Mr. Anderson, far more enthusiastically than he had perhaps ever said his name. Ricky walked into the room, noticing the blue eyes of the other man following him curiously. "Kurt, this is Ricky. One of my students."

"You were one of the kids that signed the card," said the blue eyed man, Kurt, his voice somewhat raspy, unused.

"Yeah," nodded Ricky. "Well, it was my idea actually."

"Thank you," smiled Kurt. "I'm sorry I was making Blaine sad," he said seriously.

"It's alright, Mr. Anderson will be happy now, right. Cos you're all better?"

"I hope so," replied Kurt before nudging Ricky's teacher and saying with a smirk, "Mr. Anderson."

"Shut up," mumbled Mr. Anderson with a roll of his eyes.

At that moment a nurse and a doctor entered the room, clipboards in hand.

"Right, Mr. Hummel," started the doctor. "We're just going to do a quick check-up, and then it's probably best if you rest for a bit." The doctor moved to busy himself with one of the machine's next to Kurt's bed.

"I'll just be outside for a moment, okay?" said Mr. Anderson quietly, moving to hold Kurt's face in his hands. "I'll be right back." He leant in to place a quick, reassuring kiss to the other man's lips, Ricky hastily looking away, before he straightened up and gestured for Ricky to follow him out of the room. Mr. Anderson smiled and thanked the nurse and doctor on his way out, Ricky waving goodbye to Kurt, who smiled in return.

"So," said Ricky as they got outside. "I'm glad he's awake."

"Me too," grinned Mr. Anderson. There was a moments silence. "I'm sorry for being such a wreck these past few weeks."

"It's no problem," shrugged Ricky, understanding.

"Thank you," said the teacher. And as Ricky looked into the face of his favourite teacher, he knew he wasn't just thanking Ricky for not minding his state for the previous weeks.

"It's no problem," repeated Ricky with a grin.

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><p><strong>So, I hope you liked it and stuff... =)<strong>

**I asked this on one of my other stories, but I still kinda need a bit of help. I'm not recieving emails from FF when a story I've alerted has been updated or when one of my stories gets a review. It's driving me crazy! And I'm not sure why this is happening...**

**So if you could help it would be VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! Thank you =)**

**-MPIC **

**P.S. Please feel free to point out any grammatical/spelling mistakes, I'm far too lazy to proofread more than once! xD  
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